2021 Fiber Broadband Study

This research, performed by RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting (RVA), shows that fiber broadband now passes over 60.5 million homes in the US alone—a 12 percent growth in 2021. The increase in deployments can be attributed to the fact that fiber continues to score higher than any other broadband technology—such as cable, satellite or wireless—in terms of capacity, reliability, latency and customer satisfaction. The study also revealed that 43 percent of US households and 60 percent of Canadian households now have access to fiber. Larger providers such as AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and the top five cable MSOs have built nearly three-fourths (72 percent) of overall fiber broadband access, with Tier 2 regional operators like Windstream, Frontier, Consolidated and TDS making up 10 percent of the growth. Unique to the US, over 1,200 Tier 3 market players with smaller projects ranging from a single state to three or four states compose the other 17 to 18 percent of the build. This group includes a mix of rural telcos, private competitive carriers, rural electric companies, smaller cable companies, and municipalities.